Not Thinking As The World Thinks

Not living...

Dressed in a clerical collar and posing no threat, I was shot in the leg with a pepper ball by Illinois State Police while protesting outside the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Nov. 1. It was the second time I was assaulted while protesting at the facility about 35 minutes from the church I pastor. In the first incident, an ICE agent grabbed my neck and grabbed my chest and twisted as hard as he could.

If you think they treat me badly, when the whole world is watching, it pales in comparison to what happens inside that facility. Whether it’s the denial of medication and spiritual care, the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, or inadequate food, as has been reported in court, there can be no doubt — it is torture, pure and simple. It’s why I refuse to be silent, and I will continue showing up to the Broadview facility until it is closed.

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For me at least, these protests are also an expression of my most deeply held religious beliefs. Throughout Scripture, we are instructed to care for the immigrants in our midst. Leviticus 19:33-34 even says, “When a foreigner resides among you, do not mistreat them. The foreigner living among you must be treated as one of your own people and you must love them as you love yourself, because you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” It’s hard to get clearer than that.

In addition, Matthew 25 clearly says that God is identified with the most vulnerable in society. Whatever we do to or withhold from them, we do to or withhold from Jesus. I take that very seriously because it is one of the clearest avenues we have to God in this moment. For people wanting to experience God, we are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview facility than we ever were in church. I say that as someone who leads a church for a living. God does not live in our houses of worship, but instead chooses to dwell with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment.

Despite the Trump administration’s mischaracterizations, the protests I have attended have felt much more like church than a violent insurrection. There is plenty of prayer, a lot of singing and some sermons. Most of all, there is a real sense of community that pervades the atmosphere. We are all there to support our neighbors and one another. That community is so important as we strive to confront the powers of evil that are at work in this administration’s cruelty. Alone, resistance is uimpossible, but together, there can even be a remarkable amount of joy.

...as the world lives.

The words are those of the Rev. Michael Woolf.

My brother lived most of his adult life in Evanston. His widow, my sister-in-law, still lives there. It is not a place that should be defiled by ICE thugs. There isn’t a place in America where ICE belongs.

But God belongs everywhere.